This simple flower wood carving is worked from the practice board project in Relief Wood Carving Workshop by Lora S. Irish. This practice board, which includes 22 specific techniques for relief wood carving and 3 small flower designs, allows you to learn and explore the cutting strokes each of your wood carving tools creates.

PRACTICE CARVING ONE This super simple flower pattern will walk you through many of the basic techniques learned in this practice board chapter.

With this book any carver can stand beside the workbench of acclaimed artist Lora S. Irish and learn everything she has to teach about creating an expressive wood spirit. Lora clearly explains the relief carving process from start to finish: every cut, every tool change, and every depth check. The entire craft is here, from preparing the wood to roughing out and detailing the wood spirit to applying a long-lasting finish. No step is left out and no technique is left unexplained. The author shares her tips for creating realistic and detailed facial features like eyelids, windswept hair, beards, and the ever-important mustache. Best of all, when the step-by-step project is complete, Relief Carving Wood Spirits, Revised Edition offers 20 more original patterns to keep any carver busy for seasons to come.

As a beginning carver, the choice of carving tools available can be overwhelming. Which tools you really need to learn this craft and which tools you really will use can be a hard decision. There are several basic tool shapes that are standard to this hobby. Take a quick look at the different tool profiles available for your use.

A basic relief carving or whittling tool set contains far more than just your carving tools and knives. Let’s take an in-depth look at some of the common supplies you may use in your carving craft. All photos in this article are large-sized and labeled. Please click on any image to show the full-sized photo.

Here is a quick visual close-up of some of my favorite carving tools. This grouping will eventually find their way onto the work table during any carving project. The vast majority of the tools show here are between 25 and 40 years old since most are inherited from my father’s many years of wood carving. Your investment in good quality tools will last beyond your life time.

Step 1: Pre-wash your jeans to remove any starch or stabilizing chemicals. Dry the jeans thoroughly before you begin painting.

Free Doodle Pattern #043

Step 2: Download your copies of our Free Doodle Patterns, here on LSIrish.com. Type doodles into the search box in the header. We are on numbers 043 to 045 today, which should give you a nice selection of designs to use.

Step 3: Cut the scrap cardboard to fit inside of the pant’s leg, so that one end of the cardboard comes out the pant’s leg at the bottom. You can move this cardboard as you work to protect the jeans from color blending through to the other side of the jeans.

Step 4: With a black fabric marking pen begin doodling … use a light pressure on the pen tip for the smoothest and fullest line coverage. Mix your main designs with long flowing line breaks and fill patterns.

Free Doodle Pattern #044

Step 5: Use a cork-backed ruler, laid along the inner leg seam line for your measurements for the edge trim design. The cork will grab the fabric, keeping the ruler in place as you work. My inner leg trim was worked at 1/2″ measurements.

Step 6: Have fun adding colors to your design. Fill in some areas with a solid coloring, and in others just add a touch of line work. Let some areas remain unpainted to allow the blue jean color to become part of your design.

Step 7: Set your fabric pen colors according to your package directions. My set only required a hot, steam pressing to become permanent coloring.

Free Doodle Pattern #045

Step 8: Flip your jeans over and do the back side of the leg.

Step 9: You can create doodle designs on the 6 1/2″ square white cotton fabric pieces using this same method and add them to your pants. Fill in some areas of your pattern with the bright colors from your set. After the patch has been hot, steam ironed it is ready to sew into place, anywhere on your doodle jeans.

Step 1: Pre-wash your jeans to remove any starch or stabilizing chemicals. Dry the jeans thoroughly before you begin painting.

Step 2: Download your copies of our Free Doodle Patterns, here on LSIrish.com. Type doodles into the search box in the header. We are on numbers 040 to 042 today, which should give you a nice selection of designs to use.

Step 3: Cut the scrap cardboard to fit inside of the pant’s leg, so that one end of the cardboard comes out the pant’s leg at the bottom. You can move this cardboard as you work to protect the jeans from color blending through to the other side of the jeans.

Step 4: With a black fabric marking pen begin doodling … use a light pressure on the pen tip for the smoothest and fullest line coverage. Mix your main designs with long flowing line breaks and fill patterns.

Step 5: With the pale-blue fabric pen, fill the areas around your main designs with a tight dot pattern. Let the space between the dots increase as you move away from the central line of the design.

Step 6: With the medium-blue fabric pen, re-work the central area of the background with tightly packed dots.

Step 7: Using a fine-point black fabric pen, work a fill pattern over the pale-blue and medium-blue dot patterns. I used small, tightly packed circles.

Step 8: Set your fabric pen colors according to your package directions. My set only required a hot, steam pressing to become permanent coloring.

Step 9: Flip your jeans over and do the back side of the leg.

Step 10: You can create doodle designs on the 6 1/2″ square white cotton fabric pieces using this same method. Fill in some areas of your pattern with the bright colors from your set. After the patch has been hot, steam ironed it is ready to sew into place, anywhere on your doodle jeans.

Step 1: Download your free doodle patterns, here at LSIrish.com. To discover more free patterns type doodle into the search box in the header of this page.

Step 2: Using a fine-point permanent marking pen, doodle around the lower section of the outside of your clay pot. For contrast, leave the rim of the pot without decoration. Work over some of your pattern lines several times to create a thick-and-thin outline effect.

Step 3: Wrap the thin twin around the bottom edge of the rim three times. Tie the twine tightly. Use a few drops of acrylic glue to hold the knot and twine into place. Allow the glue to dry.

Step 4: Cut a 2 yard long piece of thin twine. Thread the three gold-colored bells onto the thread, and move them to the center point of the thread. Bring the two ends of the thread together, tie a knot with the two threads about 1 1/2″ above the bells.

Step 5: Slide one 3/4″ twine bead onto the two threads and position the bead above the knot made in step 4. Tie a knot in the threads that sits on top of the bead.

This wind chimes follows the same step-by-step instructions as our Doodle Wind Chimes. The free doodles where printed on card stock paper, cut, and double-stick taped into place. This is a quick wedding decoration.

Step 6: Tie the two twine threads into a third knot the height of your clay pot away from the top of the bead. If your clay pot is 3 1/2″ tall, this third knot is made 3 1/2″ away from the bead.

Step 7: Cut two 1 1/4″ long pieces from the bamboo kitchen skewer. Tie one piece with a knot tightly above the third knot. Slide the twine, from the inside to the outside, through the hole in the bottom of the clay pot. Lay the second bamboo piece between the two twine ends, on the bottom of the pot, and secure with a tight knot. These two bamboo sticks hold the bell clapper in place.

Step 8: Hold one end of the burlap ribbon between your thumb and the side of your palm. Open your fingers as wide as possible. Wrap the ribbon over your fingers four to five times, leaving at least a 4″ long end.

Step 9: Carefully remove the wrapped burlap ribbon from your hand and place it, centered, between the two twine threads. Tie a tight knot in the twine to secure the burlap ribbons.

Step 10: Tie a knot in the twine threads 4″ to 5″ from what is now the top of your wind chime. Clip the ends to about 1/2″ long.

Step 11: Working one burlap ribbon loop at a time, turn each loop inside-out. This gives your ribbon that lovely curl.